Service providers and device manufacturers (e.g., wireless, cellular, etc.) are continually challenged to deliver value and convenience to consumers by, for example, providing compelling network services. Wireless networks, such as those specified by various IEEE 802.11 standards (e.g., IEEE 802.11 standard, published Jun. 12, 2007, and beyond) for example, employ links between devices to communicate information. Procedures involving the initial setup of these links are important to such wireless networks.
Wireless network access points often provide a beacon that may include access point identification and capability information. Dense beacons often crowd an available wireless medium making the initial link setup inefficient and/or crippling ongoing links because beacons usually includes additional broadcast or multicast information.
Though 802.11 based networks often support active scanning in which a device transmits an unsolicited discovery message (e.g. a probe request message) to discover a wireless network access point, active scanning is often limited by geographical regulations that prevent the device from performing any type of transmission prior to a reception of a message from an available wireless network access point (e.g. a beacon, measurement pilot, FILS frame discovery, etc.).
Additionally, some wireless network access points use local unsynchronized clocks that are only accurate to a certain extent (e.g. 20 ppm for 20 Mhz OFDM 802.11g technology). As such, various beacon schedules that correspond to respective wireless network access points may constantly and unforeseeably shift in relation to one another, especially when one or more wireless network access points are not part of a same network.